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00:00Transcribed by ESO, translated by —
00:30What we went through will be difficult to understand even for our contemporaries
00:38and much more difficult for the generations that have already no personal experience from those days.
01:00Transcribed by ESO, translated by —
01:30The Office of the National Socialist Party in Munich in 1929.
01:49The keen young clerk who now comes forward has already been noticed.
01:53He is marked for promotion, for high responsibility.
01:57He is Heinrich Himmler.
02:03Himmler it is who refines the philosophy of Nazism, its ideas on politics and on race.
02:10Hitler has appointed him Reichführer of the SS.
02:14When I wanted to sign up, the man in charge asked me, were you a soldier?
02:20I said, yes, indeed.
02:21In the First World War?
02:23Yes, indeed.
02:24Do you have awards for bravery?
02:27Yes, indeed.
02:29What do you have?
02:30And then I said, Iron Cross First and Second Class, and I served in the Hessian Lifeguard Regiment.
02:36Then he said, well, just as there was an elite guard in the Kaiser's time, there is an elite guard now in the new movement, and that is the SS.
02:45Yes, you should join the SS.
02:53So, I allowed myself to be persuaded, and thereby, if you like, I came by fate to the SS, to be Himmler's adjutant.
03:01Himmler's dream for his elite guard had roots in the fabled past, in the culture of an older Aryan Germany.
03:25When the Nazis came to power in 1933, he could put his ideas into practice.
03:30Himmler had set out to achieve a dream.
03:37He would inspire a new awakening of the Germanic race within the German people.
03:48Youth would achieve the dream.
03:53Youth have the nerve and the strength that would be needed.
04:00Fresh air, exercise, good food, to build blood and bone and marrow.
04:19There were no limits to what healthy youth could do.
04:22And the dream had a pseudo-scientific base, neo-Darwinism, propagated in films like this.
04:34Only the fittest survive.
04:38The weak go under.
04:39That, after all, was the law of nature.
04:50Farmers knew it perfectly well.
04:53Horses were bred for pace or for the plough.
04:57Why not pedigree humans, too?
05:00It was time to develop a new race.
05:10A better one.
05:12A race of supermen.
05:13There was no harm in that.
05:15We must see how we could return to a more natural law.
05:19But only ever through positive racial thought.
05:22How one can improve something and breed it.
05:24Never with the thought, it never occurred to us,
05:32that we might arrogantly talk about exterminating anybody
05:35who didn't happen to have been born with a white skin
05:38or who was culturally inferior to us
05:41or was undesirable.
05:43The SS, the strongest, the purest, the fiercest.
05:52They would do more than survive.
05:55With Himmler at their head,
05:56they would create a racially superior Europe.
06:04The SS was based on the example of the Jesuit order,
06:08which had been founded as the elite guard of the Catholic Church.
06:11And Himmler had taken much from this.
06:15The hierarchy, the strict selection and leadership,
06:18and the punishments.
06:24Himmler himself exacts the oath of obedience unto death.
06:33They were subtly conditioned to see themselves
06:36as the sons of light,
06:38that they were engaged in a struggle
06:40against the powers of darkness,
06:41and that it was their duty to feel
06:44that they were at all times on duty for the nation,
06:46and in a wider sense,
06:48for the new order in Europe.
06:55Arbeich macht frei.
06:57Work sets you free
06:59on the gates of Dachau,
07:01a model concentration camp.
07:02The SS were Hitler's instrument of terror
07:06in the creation of the new order.
07:08It was only logical that they should run the camps.
07:16Their first prisoners
07:17were the dissidents of the Nazi state,
07:20political and religious,
07:21as well as racial.
07:22The SS schooled themselves in brutality,
07:27systematically reducing their victims
07:29to total subservience,
07:31depriving them of individuality.
07:33No names.
07:36Numbers.
07:41September 1935.
07:43The Nuremberg Laws.
07:45In the Reichstag,
07:49Hermann Göring
07:49spelled out the purpose
07:51of the Reich Citizenship Act
07:52and the act for the protection
07:54of German blood
07:55and German honor.
07:58Pure
07:58must not mix with impure.
08:02From now on,
08:03intermarriage was forbidden,
08:04and sex declared illegal
08:06between pure Aryan
08:07and impure Jew.
08:11Appealing to feelings
08:12and beliefs
08:13deep-rooted in European Christian culture,
08:16Nazi propaganda
08:17pilloried the dirty Jew.
08:19Dishonest,
08:20scheming,
08:21money-lending capitalist
08:22and subversive communist.
08:25Verminous,
08:25unclean,
08:27racially inferior.
08:29Jews are not wanted here.
08:31But for leaders
08:32seeking to unite a people,
08:34they were mighty useful scapegoats
08:35to unite against.
08:37In schools,
08:39the Jew boys
08:39stood by the blackboard
08:41as their classmates
08:42pointed out the difference.
08:43German schoolchildren
08:47were taught
08:47to despise Jewish culture
08:48as soft and evil,
08:50to be proud
08:51of their own strength,
08:52their own purity.
08:57From all over Germany,
08:59the young converge
09:00on Landsberg,
09:01the castle
09:02where, as a prisoner,
09:03Hitler had first set out
09:04his theory
09:05of a dominant Aryan race.
09:07Hitler had dreamed of a youth
09:23as fierce as animals,
09:25with Christian tenderness
09:26and other degenerate
09:27soft mutations
09:28cleansed,
09:29burnt out of them.
09:30Now,
09:32that youth
09:32was growing up
09:34to manhood.
09:36November 1938,
09:39the synagogues
09:40burned on Crystal Night.
09:41The morning after,
09:51Jewish males
09:52were marched off
09:53to concentration camps.
09:56The Jews
09:56were isolated,
09:58friendless.
09:59It was time
10:00to get out
10:00if they could.
10:02Not many countries
10:08opened their doors
10:09to the Jews.
10:11In Germany, too,
10:12bureaucratic obstacles.
10:14Jewish emigrants
10:15paid stiff charges
10:16when they obtained
10:17permissions to leave
10:18from state officials
10:19such as Adolf Eichmann.
10:23I asked Eichmann,
10:25why don't you make it easier
10:26for these people
10:26when they want to get out?
10:28You want to get the Jews out,
10:29they want to leave
10:30of their own accord.
10:33Eichmann organized it.
10:35And they actually did it
10:37as I had envisaged it.
10:43There was a representative
10:44from the passport office,
10:46a representative
10:46from the finance authorities,
10:48a representative
10:49from the shipping offices
10:50and transport representatives,
10:52and this man,
10:53this poor Jewish man
10:54who now wanted to emigrate,
10:56could make the rounds
10:57in two hours
10:58and could get all
10:58his confirmations
10:59and could get out.
11:02And as I said,
11:07I really must say it,
11:08Eichmann said to me once,
11:10you were actually
11:11the inventor
11:12of the central office
11:12for Jewish emigration.
11:13when it's the international
11:17Jewdom.
11:18January 1939,
11:20Hitler threatens
11:21a new solution
11:22to the Jewish problem.
11:25If world Jewry
11:26drags Germany
11:27into another war,
11:28that will be the end
11:29of the Jews in Europe.
11:30September 1939,
11:44Germany attacks Poland.
11:53The victorious armies
11:55parade through Warsaw.
11:58Poland will be colonized.
11:59the population
12:00are not Aryans,
12:01they're Slavs
12:02and Jews.
12:07I remember
12:09that in front
12:09there was a German band
12:11with musical instruments.
12:13For me,
12:14it was very nice.
12:16I was happy.
12:18I even remember
12:19that I clapped.
12:20German soldiers,
12:24aided by some Pole,
12:26beat up Jews
12:27in the streets.
12:39Nazi rule in Poland
12:41is based at once
12:42on ruthless terror.
12:43any who resist,
12:45object,
12:46answer back,
12:47risk instant execution.
12:52There are public
12:53hangings by the thousand.
12:54The whole of Poland
13:07is on the move
13:07to be resettled
13:08on a racial basis.
13:10Those of German origin
13:11into Germany
13:12that pulls themselves
13:14to designated areas
13:15a workforce
13:16without rights
13:17in their own country.
13:19At the bottom
13:20of the heap,
13:21the Jews.
13:23By order,
13:25they will wear
13:25the Star of David
13:26at all times.
13:28There are heavy penalties
13:29for not doing so.
13:30Wearing it,
13:37they are easily identified.
13:42The Jews started the war.
13:45Now let them
13:45clear up the mess.
13:54German newsreel cameras
13:55could show the people
13:56back home
13:57that Jews at last
13:58were being made to do
13:59an honest day's work
14:01to earn their daily bread.
14:07My mother,
14:09may her soul rest in peace,
14:11asked me to go down
14:11to the bakery
14:12and stand there
14:13the whole night
14:14in order to get
14:14a loaf of bread
14:15so that there would be
14:16something to eat at home
14:17the next day.
14:21When I arrived,
14:22there were already
14:23masses and masses
14:23of people
14:24standing in line.
14:26Among us,
14:27there were little children,
14:28non-Jews,
14:29Poles,
14:30running around.
14:32They pointed
14:32at each and every person.
14:34That's a Jew.
14:35That's a Jew.
14:36Das Judah.
14:37Das Judah.
14:38Das Judah.
14:39So that these people
14:41would be taken out of line
14:42and not get bread.
14:46My turn came.
14:47I turned around
14:48and saw that the boy
14:49was a friend
14:49with whom I played.
14:50I said to him
14:52in Polish,
14:52what are you doing?
14:54His answer was,
14:55I'm not your friend.
14:57You're a Jew.
14:58I don't know you.
15:01In 1940,
15:02Germany struck west.
15:04The SS went too.
15:05Here again,
15:16a brutal terror.
15:20Less so, however,
15:21than in Eastern Europe.
15:23Many in the West
15:24were Aryans too.
15:27In Poland,
15:28in 1940 and 1941,
15:31Jews were ordered
15:31into recreated
15:33medieval ghettos.
15:35We took a small cart.
15:37I, with my father,
15:39built a small cart
15:39and we began to move.
15:41Thousands and thousands,
15:43tens of thousands
15:44of people were walking,
15:45taking their belongings
15:46with them.
15:47Some on their heads,
15:48some on their backs,
15:49on their shoulders.
15:50There were children,
15:51old people,
15:52babies,
15:53all of them,
15:54like the exile
15:55of the peoples,
15:56the exile from Egypt.
16:01The ghettos were closed off
16:10behind wire
16:10and long high walls.
16:15In Warsaw,
16:16a road divided
16:17the ghetto in two,
16:19with a bridge over it
16:20for the Jews to cross by.
16:26There were only
16:27two water pits
16:28in the ghetto.
16:29The ghetto was small.
16:30When they brought us
16:32into the ghetto,
16:33they put three families
16:34with children
16:35into one room.
16:40In one room,
16:41three families
16:42with children.
16:43We never slept.
16:59Starvation rations.
17:00Harsh punishment
17:06for smuggling food.
17:20For resistance
17:21or attempts to escape,
17:23public execution.
17:24June 1941.
17:47Germany attacks Russia.
17:49SS shocked troops
17:51in the first wave.
17:51Another racial war.
17:57More resettlement,
17:59mass deportations,
18:00forced emigrations.
18:02War against subhumans,
18:04against Slavs
18:05and against Jews.
18:07Millions of Jews.
18:10We found a round figure
18:12of three million Jews
18:13in Poland.
18:14And then immediately
18:15after that
18:16came the Russian campaign.
18:17And we found another
18:18five million Jews
18:19in Russia.
18:21How on earth
18:22should we manage
18:22to emigrate
18:23this eight million
18:24by using these long
18:26and tiresome
18:27official methods?
18:29Now with the war,
18:30we were cut off.
18:32We had no way out.
18:34To be rid of
18:35so many Jews.
18:38Only one alternative
18:39left.
18:40Kill them all.
18:41The job was begun
18:43by SS execution squads.
18:46Einsatzgruppen.
18:51They're shooting.
18:57People are already
18:59lying dead.
19:01My daughter
19:01was in my arms
19:02the whole time.
19:03Somehow I found
19:04the strength
19:04to carry her.
19:06She was so close
19:07to me
19:07that I couldn't undress.
19:08She wouldn't let me.
19:09She said
19:11let's run away
19:13they're killing us.
19:14Why do we just
19:14stand here?
19:17Why do people
19:18stand and not run away?
19:19Why are they standing?
19:20I said to her
19:21I could not really speak.
19:23I think I said
19:23where are we going
19:25to run to?
19:26Some people
19:27did start to escape
19:28but they didn't let them.
19:33There were many
19:34Germans guarding us.
19:36There were many
19:37Germans.
19:37Germans not only
19:38Germans.
19:39They even got
19:40non-Jews from the
19:41towns together
19:42to guard
19:42that we shouldn't
19:43escape.
19:44There was some
19:45sort of policeman
19:46there.
19:48So we undressed
19:49there was no
19:49alternative.
19:50There were about
20:02500 people
20:03altogether.
20:04Our turn came.
20:06I came up
20:07and saw
20:08how my father went.
20:11How my mother
20:12is shot.
20:13how my sisters
20:16are shot.
20:18My sister was
20:19very pretty,
20:20absolutely beautiful.
20:22The German
20:23looked into her
20:24eyes and she
20:25pleaded with him
20:26to let her go.
20:27Don't kill me.
20:29Just let me live.
20:31Nothing helped.
20:33She was shot.
20:34Then I,
20:40with my daughter
20:41in my arms,
20:41came up.
20:43He told me
20:44to put her down.
20:45I wanted to,
20:45but she wouldn't
20:46let me.
20:48She hid her head
20:49so as not to see
20:50what was being
20:50done with her.
20:53He forcibly,
20:54as far as I can
20:55remember,
20:55took her,
20:56stood her up.
20:57He shot
20:59or didn't shoot.
21:02I neither saw
21:03nor heard.
21:05Then he shot me.
21:08I stood there
21:09and heard a shot.
21:11He didn't touch me.
21:14Then again,
21:15a shot.
21:17I fell.
21:20I am lying
21:21in the pit
21:22and I feel
21:23that I do feel
21:25something.
21:26I didn't believe.
21:27I couldn't believe
21:29that I'm alive.
21:33I was lying
21:35in a pit of blood,
21:37a pit
21:37full of blood.
21:42This is how
21:43I lay the whole night,
21:45under corpses.
21:47In August 1941,
21:49Himmler visited
21:50a concentration
21:51center near Minsk.
21:52It was crowded
22:06with Jews,
22:07Russian prisoners
22:07of war,
22:08and others
22:09who were to die.
22:11The SS-Reichführer
22:12asked to see
22:13for himself
22:13how the killing
22:14was done.
22:16And there,
22:16an open grave
22:17had been dug.
22:18They had to jump
22:23into this
22:24and lie
22:24face downwards.
22:26And sometimes,
22:27when one or two rows
22:27had already been shot,
22:29they had to lie
22:30on the people
22:30who'd been shot.
22:33And then,
22:33they were shot
22:34from the edge
22:35of the grave.
22:35And Himmler
22:40had never seen
22:43dead people before.
22:44And in his curiosity,
22:46he stood right up
22:47at the edge
22:47of this open grave,
22:49a sort of
22:49triangular hole,
22:51and was looking in.
22:53While he was looking in,
22:55Himmler had
22:56the deserved bad luck
22:57that from one or other
22:59of those
22:59who'd been shot
23:00in the head,
23:00he got a splash
23:02of brains
23:02on his coat.
23:03And I think it also
23:04splashed onto his face.
23:05And he went
23:09very green and pale.
23:11He wasn't actually sick.
23:15But he was heaving
23:16and turned around
23:17and swayed.
23:21And then I had
23:22to jump forward
23:23and hold him steady.
23:24And then I let him
23:25away from the grave.
23:35And then I met him
23:47and he would have
23:49and he would come
23:49to the grave.
23:49And then I would have
23:50to do it to be
23:50and say,
23:51to the grave.
23:53And then I would have
23:53to go to the grave.
23:54And then I would have
23:55to jump over.
23:55And now,
23:57to the grave.
23:57After the shooting was over, Himmler gathered the shooting commanders and standing up in
24:21his car so that he'd be a little higher and be able to see the whole unit, he made a speech.
24:26He could not relieve them of this duty, he could not spare them.
24:31In the interests of the Reich, in this planned thousand-year Reich, in its first decisive
24:37great war after the takeover of power, they must do their duty.
24:53But shooting was messy, distressing, inefficient.
24:58So vast an undertaking required careful planning.
25:01At Wannsee, in January 1942, Himmler's deputy, Heydrich, convened a conference.
25:09Senior civil servants attended from various departments of state.
25:13There were representatives of the ministries of justice and of transport.
25:17Several minutes were kept, and lists of Jews country by country.
25:21In Poland, over two million.
25:23In Norway, thirteen hundred.
25:26England, three hundred and thirty thousand.
25:28Russia, five million.
25:31Grand total, over eleven million.
25:35Eichmann with his experience in transportation was appointed permanent administrator for this
25:41final solution of the Jewish problem.
25:45It had been decided that all the Jews in Europe were to be gassed.
25:54All occupied Europe had a concentration camp system based on the model camp Dachau.
26:01The camps were not only an instrument of terror.
26:04They were an important factor in war production, each with its cluster of labor camps attached.
26:11Now they were also to be the means of the final solution.
26:15In the occupied East, new camps were specially built, and old ones equipped with new industrial
26:21capacity.
26:23They were to be machines to kill human beings by the million, utilize the by-products, dispose
26:29of the waste.
26:31The camps were sited on railway routes to facilitate transportation.
26:35Eichmann chartered rolling stock from the state railways.
26:40The biggest camp of all was built astride the main railway line from Krakow to Vienna,
26:44in the outskirts of the Polish town of Auschwitz, Auschwitz.
26:52In summer 1942, Himmler visited Auschwitz to inspect progress, to see for himself how things
26:59were getting on.
27:02Work was underway.
27:04Manufacturers' tenders had been called for, choices made.
27:07Plans and architects' drawings for the new combined gas chambers and crematoriums were
27:11ready for inspection, with their carefully designed chimneys and specially patented furnaces.
27:29Outside, construction workers, slave labourers, were striving to keep to their schedules in
27:39the warm summer weather.
27:46The gassing would be done with cans of poison pellets developed from a commercial pesticide,
27:51Zyklon B.
27:52The pellets were shaken through a roof grill.
27:55Exposed to the air, they gave off cyanide gas.
27:58In the occupied territories, the roundups began.
28:21In some countries, this is Holland, no stampede.
28:25The Jews gathered for resettlement in orderly fashion.
28:29The order of their going worked out by their own community leaders.
28:33Behind it all, the SS and the Gestapo.
28:38Jews everywhere were told, and they were ready to believe, they were being transported for resettlement.
28:47In the starving ghettos of the East, those who volunteered to go got bread.
28:50To escape starvation, they willingly paid railway fares for the journey.
29:05Bewildered, under armed guard, they walked to the station.
29:11The cattle trucks were waiting.
29:13There were soldiers on the platform.
29:17They climbed aboard.
29:21The minute we got in, the minute they closed it on us with a bolt, terrible cries began inside.
29:27In Polish, Yiddish, German, pleading, requests.
29:33There's no air.
29:35We're suffocating, suffocating, suffocating.
29:39Here, suddenly, we had a hand on wheels.
29:46And people suddenly stopped to be preoccupied, either with the past or with the future, but
29:51with surviving the journey.
29:57The first to faint were children, women, old men and women.
30:02They all fell down like flies, exactly like flies.
30:09Father was standing next to me.
30:10All of a sudden, I see that he is falling.
30:14He has collapsed.
30:15I cried, Father, Father.
30:21Then I found a piece of wood on the floor of the wagon.
30:31I got up and began to beat with the piece of wood.
30:34It was a club or something.
30:39I began to beat the people who were standing around me in the wagon, so that they would make
30:44room for Father, so that Father could get up.
30:48I remember that I didn't care about the suffering of others, their cries, their threats, only
30:54that Father should get up.
31:06We had read the name of Auschwitz on the label, on the trucks, in the trucks of a wagon,
31:12wagons, trucks.
31:16But nobody of us knew what Auschwitz meant.
31:27I could see two rows of barbed wire, which were obviously electrical.
31:36And when I saw a row of people with carbons and a row of dogs, very disciplined dogs, and
31:46I was more amused than uneasy.
31:48I didn't think that they were going to shoot me because I couldn't see any reason for that.
31:56The car was opened.
31:58They undid the bolt.
32:00The first moment it was opened, there was a sudden gust of air.
32:06It was good.
32:07We began to throw out the dead bodies, but all of a sudden, there were voices.
32:17I was afraid then, for the first time, you know why, there were flames until the sky and
32:29a strange smell, a smell I remember from home when my mother burns on Friday a chicken.
32:41On the platform to greet them, an SS reception committee.
32:46New arrivals were divided into two columns, a quick medical inspection by the camp doctors.
32:53Those fit to work were put to one side.
33:06In the other column, all the rest.
33:08The old, the sick, the lame, pregnant mothers, women with children.
33:22Some suspect the worst.
33:25Most have no idea.
33:27The idea for a mother being told after this terrible journey that her children are going
33:34to be ghast was an utter outrageous idea in her mind because after all what she suffered,
33:42here comes a gangster who wants to increase her suffering.
33:46So she was tempted to go immediately to the next need officer and say that this man
33:52says, sir, sir, that my children are going to be ghast and he says, madam, do you think
33:59you are barbarian?
34:06Those selected to be ghast were told they would be deloused in the showers before starting work.
34:12Then they would rejoin their families.
34:17They waited their turn, sometimes for hours.
34:19Helblinger said to me, Richard, you are interested in the actions?
34:26I said, yes, very interested indeed.
34:29He said, I'll take you with me this evening.
34:32The new arrivals had to get undressed and when a certain number had gone inside, they
34:40shut the doors and that happened three times and every time Helblinger had to go out to
34:47his ambulance and they took out a sort of tin.
34:50One of the SS block furors did that.
34:53And then he climbed up the ladder and then at the top there was a round hole and he opened
34:59a little iron door and held the tin there and shook it.
35:04And then he shut the little door again.
35:06Then a fearful screaming started up.
35:09Approximately, I would reckon after about ten minutes, it slowly went quiet.
35:14I said to Helblinger, can we get a bit nearer when they take them out?
35:19So we went a bit closer.
35:20They opened the door.
35:22That was the prisoner squad who did that.
35:24Then a blue haze came out and I looked in and I saw a pyramid.
35:29They'd all climbed on top of each other until the last one stood on the very top, all one
35:34on top of the other.
35:35It was a pointed heap.
35:37It all came up to a point.
35:40And then the prisoners had to go in and tear it apart.
35:51They had to tug and pull very hard to disentangle all these people.
35:58Then we went back to the hall and now it was the turn of the last lot to get undressed.
36:02The ones who'd managed to hang back a bit all the time.
36:06Then the prisoners had to check where small children had been hidden and covered up.
36:10They pulled them out and opened the doors quickly again.
36:14And whoosh!
36:15They threw all the children in and slammed the doors.
36:18I'm going to be sick, I said.
36:22Oh my, I said.
36:23I've never seen anything like it in my life.
36:25It's absolutely terrible.
36:27And just imagine, when they threw the children in, how the people inside screamed because
36:32then they suddenly realized what was happening.
36:35And I said, Carl, can we leave soon?
36:37I can't stand it anymore.
36:39And he said, you do get used to anything in time.
36:50A few, the strong, the young would work till they died.
36:57Some would die of exhaustion.
36:59Some were beaten to death.
37:01Some, too weak to work another day, were gassed in their turn.
37:07And prisoners had other uses, medical experiments.
37:23Some, their hearts broken, chose to die on the electrified wire.
37:28Outside that wire, SS men free to go home to their families at the end of the day's work.
37:38And I remember when we passed, 10,000 naked women in a frosty morning,
37:44already sorted out, you see, and put on the lorries.
37:47And they knew, they were old prisoners already.
37:50And they knew that they are now going to the gas chamber.
37:53And they were quiet, and somehow people were accustomed to live with the moment,
37:59with the knowledge that the death will come.
38:01But when the motor started, you know, this noise, this created a panic between the women.
38:07And a terrible noise went up from those lorries, you see.
38:12The death cry of thousands of young women, you know, who were already reduced to skeletons.
38:17And their futile attempts, which they knew by any logic that they can't succeed,
38:24to jump out from the lorries, which takes them to the gas chambers,
38:28which are only, perhaps, less than a mile away.
38:31And which were already stoked, and the fire was coming out from the chimneys.
38:36This means everything was prepared.
38:38You see, this was a moment when Moshe Zonish, a rabbi's son, spoke to his God.
38:43God showed them your power.
38:46This is against you.
38:48And nothing happened.
38:50And then he said, there is no God.
38:57We used to say, where is the whole world?
39:00Where is the United States?
39:02Where is Russia?
39:04Do they know what is happening here in the extermination camps at all?
39:09There had, of course, been only too much evidence of persecution of the Jews
39:17before the war began in Hitlerite Germany.
39:22And then, as the war progressed, some horrifying reports began to come out.
39:30At first, it was very difficult, naturally, to assess their accuracy.
39:36And they were indeed so horrible that it's hard to believe they could be true.
39:44Among the working prisoners, a resistance movement.
39:48They smuggled out photographs with a plea to the great powers for help.
39:53The evidence was so extensive, one could hardly fail to give it credit.
40:00And we decided that one of the things we must do was to make a joint statement in each of our capitals,
40:08at the same time, declaring what our information was and what this horror was that was being perpetrated,
40:16and also making plain our detestation of it,
40:20and our determination that those responsible for it should be punished when the war was over.
40:27And that we got agreement upon after some negotiation,
40:32and it was near the end of 1942 when I made this statement in the House of Commons,
40:38with, I must say, a dramatic effect far exceeding anything that I'd expected.
40:47And the speaker, a very fine speaker, Earl Fitzroy, he got up and he said,
40:52it is for the House to rise if it so wishes to express its feelings,
40:56and the whole House got up.
40:58And I remember Lloyd George coming to me afterwards and saying,
41:01all my years in Parliament, I have never seen anything like this.
41:05He was deeply impressed, and so was I.
41:08Well, that was something that we could do.
41:12In April 1943, the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto rose,
41:17led by young men and women who knew the truth about resettlement
41:21and determined to fight.
41:25They had pitifully few arms.
41:27They fought bravely.
41:29It took the Germans 33 days to crush the ghetto.
41:40The survivors were marched off to share the fate of those who had gone unresisting before them.
41:48Theresienstadt.
41:50The Nazi cover story, Resettlement in the East, was elaborately documented.
41:57This propaganda film, made in 1943, was designed to show the German public
42:01and the International Red Cross what conditions in the resettlement camps were really like.
42:07At the time this film was released, most of the people seen here were already dead in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.
42:20By 1944, the Germans were losing the war.
42:23The SS speeded up the rate of killing.
42:25The railway tracks now led straight to the gas chambers.
42:32And still the trains rolled in from Italy, from Greece, from Hungary.
42:38They took us to crematoria 3 and 4.
42:41There we saw hell on this earth.
42:46Large piles of dead people
42:48and people dragging these bodies to a long pit.
42:55About 30 meters in length and 10 meters in width.
43:00There was a huge fire there, made of trees.
43:04On the other side, fat was being taken out of this pit with a bucket.
43:10We immediately had to begin working.
43:15Four people would take hold of one dead person.
43:19But the SS came and said,
43:22No, each one of you will take one.
43:25He showed us how, with a simple walking stick.
43:31One was to take the body under the chin, put the stick on the neck,
43:34and drag the body to the pit, like it would drag a rag or a piece of wood.
43:39At the edge of the pit, there were still more people who pushed the dead into the pit.
43:44Some of our group threw themselves and jumped into the pit, alive.
43:52They apparently thought it better to be burned alive, rather than work at such a job.
43:56There were only four or five SS men altogether.
44:04They were so well organized that there were just the four or five of them with us.
44:10But there were electric fences.
44:15And beyond this fence, there were SS guards.
44:18Escape was impossible.
44:20After a week, they suddenly took me one night to crematorium one.
44:31There, the whole job was more mechanical.
44:35All around, there were water installations as if for showers.
44:43Everyone crowded around these showers.
44:46They still didn't know.
44:47Some who did, did not dare to believe that they were going to be poisoned there.
44:54They would put about two thousand, two and a half thousand people in there.
44:59If there wasn't enough room, the small children would be thrown on top of the people's heads.
45:07There were invalides.
45:09They would take out their service cards showing that they had fought in the First World War.
45:12With all kinds of distinctions and medals which they had from that time.
45:17They shouted, what's this?
45:19We fought for Germany and now they're going to burn us, to kill us.
45:22This is impossible.
45:24We protest against such a thing.
45:26But everyone just laughed at them.
45:29They didn't take it seriously, these SS men.
45:32They laughed at the whole thing.
45:33There were invalides whom I helped to undress as they couldn't do it by themselves.
45:40There were many of us who helped.
45:43I would talk to these people.
45:45There were cases where I saw acquaintances.
45:48My heart wouldn't let me walk over to them to let them recognize me.
45:51No one who hasn't gone through such a thing can imagine what the will to live is.
45:58What a moment of life is.
46:01Every person, without exception, is capable of doing the worst things just to live another minute.
46:09Many women miscarried during the poisoning.
46:25People hit each other.
46:28People scratched with their nails.
46:30There were fingernail marks on people.
46:32Everyone wanted to survive, but it was impossible there.
46:44We went in to take out all the corpses.
46:47We took them up by lifts to the ovens.
46:53Near the ovens, upstairs, there was a man who removed gold teeth and false teeth.
46:58They would shave the women's hair and look for all sorts of valuables in the most intimate of places.
47:06Especially on the women.
47:09In the oven, it took 15 minutes to burn them.
47:14Only a few ashes were left from all those corpses.
47:19The industry of death had useful by-products.
47:23Women's hair was packed in bales.
47:25Gold teeth melted down.
47:28Artificial limbs and spectacle lenses recycled for the German war machine.
47:33It all helped.
47:44In July 1944, the Russians liberated Lublin in eastern Poland.
47:49Close by, they found the extermination camp at Majdanek, where tens of thousands had died.
48:05The proofs of horror were all too clear.
48:09Only 170 miles away, the ovens of Auschwitz were busier than ever.
48:15There were two shifts at work, from six in the morning to six at night.
48:23I was present when they brought the gypsies one night for burning, for poisoning.
48:34It was a terrible sight.
48:36There were cries to the sky.
48:49The cries in the bunker, in the crematorium, in the gas chamber, were horrible.
48:55Horrible.
48:57Horrible.
48:59I still wonder today how God didn't hear these cries.
49:04The German army was now retreating on all fronts, leaving fire and destruction behind.
49:12He tried to destroy evidence of the camps, pulling up railway lines, dismantling equipment.
49:19Yet even now, Himmler urged the master race to fight on.
49:35Defeat was unthinkable, their task unfinished.
49:38Eichmann said at that time, six million people have been killed.
49:47Four million in concentration camps and similar setups.
49:52And two million by shooting.
49:56Einsatzkommandos.
49:57And he told me at that time, it was fantastic, really.
50:02I had thought a lot of people had been killed, but six million.
50:06Well, he said, and just imagine, that was still too few for Himmler.
50:12Himmler said to me, there must be more than that.
50:15And he set up his own statistics unit.
50:17Today, one would say computer people, who were to check up on this.
50:20The Russians reached Auschwitz in January 1945.
50:28The Germans had moved most of the surviving prisoners back west into Germany.
50:34Some too old or too sick to be moved, remained.
50:50And there were the relics and belongings of those who had been brought here.
51:13Then rescuers reached the camps in Germany itself.
51:15Whereby now, the survivors of the extermination camps had been abandoned.
51:36They found the stench of rotting corpses, cholera, typhus.
51:40Many who were rescued were too weak to survive.
51:57Some lived to bear witness.
52:02When the Americans entered, I weighed 42 kilos.
52:05I was skin and bones.
52:13I walked around the camp naked.
52:15I had a belt with a plate, spoon and revolver.
52:23This was all my property after the liberation.
52:25I bless every day that I continue to live.
52:42I bless every day that I continue to live
52:55because every day that I live is pure profit.
52:59I could say that today I'm 27 years old.
53:03The years before the camp don't count
53:05as I was dead in the camp
53:07and reborn after the liberation.
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